The Vulture King

The skin was being flayed from his palms, but he knew he had to keep going. Under a hot Mojave sun, Adam gritted his teeth and twisted the winch handle. If he showed any pain, Madelyn, pulling the rope behind him, would see, and win. He would be the fool all along.

But oil was here. It was the only thing that made sense. He wasn’t like the others that came out West just to fail. He would endure her silent judgment and crank the winch.

It was coming up now: he saw the dark iron bit slowly rise from the hole, ascending the derrick. A couple more turns and it would be fully visible in the sunlight. He would see it slick black and be proven right. Just a few more turns.

But before it came into view, SNAP! The rope split apart, and the drill crashed downward, colliding against the sides of the well in an awful cacophony. Gone.

Adam stood there, looking at the remains of the tether dangling in the dead heat. He had been so close.

He turned to see his wife and Panchito, the only worker he had left, frozen in place — their hands clutching at empty air.

Madelyn glared at him, and stormed off, back towards the house.

“Jesus…” Adam said, taking off in her direction. He stopped for a second as he got to Panchito, Madelyn’s diminishing figure fixed in the corner of his eye.

“Get the drill,” he said to the Mexican.

Panchito looked at him confused, his English virtually nonexistent. He was old too, so old, but he was all Adam had, the only one who didn’t cross the fence to work for his brother. He was loyal.

Adam pointed to the well.

“The drill — get it.”

With that, Adam left to get Madelyn.

“Wait, please,” he moaned as he followed her.

She was really going for it, not pausing or looking over her shoulder. He had played this game with her many times before, repeating apologies and promises until she would eventually turn and rejoin him, but not today. She walked doggedly back towards their cabin, becoming but a speck, a lone mariner adrift in the sea of the dry holes they had previously dug.

Adam stopped, letting her temper cool. She would be fine. Turning to the west, he saw his younger brother's land stretch across limitlessly in the distance. A thick forest of wooden oil derricks — a nexus of productivity. He would have that too, but on his terms. He could never work with a man like that. No, he had to beat him.

The day was over and now Adam sat on the tallest hill there was, staring off into his brother’s land; it had become a hobby of his. In his hand, he toyed with the rough stone he picked up from his pile. If he squinted, he could see his old laborers, bustling between towers. Laughing, grunting, barking orders. The signs of industry — men at work.

Then, right on schedule, the roar of an engine — his brother inbound. The daily inspection of the land, and the signal for Adam to rise to his feet.

Adam felt that familiar pressure in his chest, paired with a sinking feeling in his stomach, as he watched his brother in his lustrous new automobile, another glamorous girl in tow, dash across the dusty earth. In the driver’s seat, his brother turned to face Adam’s land and waved, knowing that he was watching.

Adam did not return his wave. He never did. Instead, he kept thumbing the rock in hand. Now, Adam squared up his body, the motion practiced, familiar. Cranking his arm back, he aimed not for his brother’s head this time, but his chest. The larger target.

The car was close; he could see the pearlescent white teeth in that bastard's stinking face now. His stupid, huge smile. He let the rock rip.

Anxiously he tracked its trajectory, watching as it spun through the sky. It was going to make it; he was going to cave his brother’s chest in. Then, clank! His shoulders slumped as he watched the stone bounce off a derrick that had gotten in the way.

“Fuck!” he yelled. He kicked the pile of rocks he had stacked there, letting them scatter down the hill. His brother drove on, still waving at him. Be a little happy, he thought. He had gotten pretty close this time. One of these days he would actually hit him.

Adam ate his dinner at the table in silence. Madelyn had put out a plate of stale rye and cheese. She had gone to bed for the night, not waiting until he got back. She was probably still awake, Adam thought, between bites of moldy cheese, tucked in that small corner of the cabin. She would have been snoring softly otherwise, but there was silence. She was definitely still awake.

He got up and kicked off his shoes, making a show about being as loud as possible while he went about his bedtime preparations. When he finally nestled into the cot, he felt her body stiffen.

“I didn’t need you to storm out like that, it makes me look bad in front of the men… you need to do better tomorrow.” He whispered into her ear as his hand slipped beneath her nightgown, sliding up her thighs.

“We can’t have that,” he said as he nibbled her earlobe with his yellow teeth. His fingers moved up and down her cavity, untangling the long strands of her pubic hair.

“Say sorry…” he whispered as his motions became vigorous. He could feel his member pressing forward against his breeches.

She tore his hand away.

“Are you fucking serious, woman?” Adam barked, withdrawing his hand. In the moonlight, he could see his fingers were as dry as the desert surrounding them.

Adam pushed himself up from the bed, taking a couple of steps back and forcing himself to breathe. The splinters from the floor dug into his bare feet. “Again?”

She looked at him now, a vicious scowl carved across her face. His heart pounded in his chest. He wasn’t even looking at her anymore, but at a spider crawling on the dark dusty window behind, hoping it would leap from the glass and bite her.

“Fine!” He spat, lying back down on the bed.

He spent hours staring up at the rotting thatch of his ceiling, mulling it all over in his head. How long was it now since she started her… punishment? Six months? Eight? It wasn’t enough that she hadn’t spoken a word to him since they moved here. That he could take.

He knew she hated it here. But that was the cost of ambition. Ambition wasn’t what she wanted, rotting on some farm in Pennsylvania, starting up a family.

No, she needed to share his vision and support him; be a wife. It was simple, his brother had struck rich with oil, which meant there had to be more. Adam was smart to buy the land next to his, never mind the cost. He couldn't pack up and leave now; all their money was spent. There was no going back.

Was that her plan? Her withholding — bringing him closer to surrender every day. If that was true, then damn her!

His eyes jolted open. Lifting his head up he saw yellow daylight coming through the window above the sleeping Madelyn. He had overslept. He lurched out of bed and reached for his boots; pack over his shoulder and pickaxe in hand. With a rough push he shook Madelyn’s shoulder to rouse her but got no response.

The sun was already high in the sky by the time he stepped out of the cabin, and Adam could feel its heat on his lonely trek back to the worksite. Panchito hadn’t come back, otherwise he would have been sleeping by the door and Adam would have had to kick him awake. His quiet walk was suddenly broken by a loud, ugly, avian caw. Adam squinted to see what it was in the distance.

A mass of black birds circled his derrick, churning around it in a languid carousel. Vultures. He had seen more than enough of them when he had first arrived in this place; had seen the way they held court around a fresh carcass. Every few seconds, one would sever from the group — diving down and perching at the edge of the well hole, looking down at what was beneath.

Adam sprinted towards the derrick, the birds screeching at him.

He swatted at them as he got closer, claiming his territory. When he got to the derrick, he bent under the woodwork, knelt and looked into the darkness. Beneath lay the unrecovered drill and Panchito, broken at the bottom of the pit.

Something else caught his attention. In Panchito’s grimy hand glinted something gold. No, Adam decided, not like gold. When he blinked, it changed colors. It was something much rarer than that.

Adam braced himself on the step ladder and descended — hand by hand, foot by foot. When he got to the ground floor, he leaned over his fallen worker, his feet sinking into the deep mud. Panchito was in bad shape. He must have taken a fall and banged his head against the jagged wall. His scalp was a rough muck of crusted blood and dried dirt. He was still breathing, but barely.

His eyes moved past the dying man’s face and onto what he held in his hand. It was a small egg, the surface of it covered in mud, but there was no mistaking its shimmering luster.

Now down on his knees, he examined it. Gleaming patterns dashed across its surface, baiting his eyes to trace shapes of staggering complexity. Then it was blocked out, covered by the tight grip of his fallen employee, who let out a loud grunt.

Adam looked into the suffering man’s eyes.

“Por… Por favor…” He could hear him whisper weakly. “Ayudame.”

Adam leaned in.

“I need this first, let me have this and I’ll get you out of here,” Adam said, pointing at the egg. “Give it to me.”

Panchito reached out with his other mud-soaked arm, grasping Adam. Adam dashed it aside in disgust, and grabbed at the Mexican’s other hand, prying away at the fingers gripping the egg. Panchito was too weak to offer resistance.

When he finally ripped it away, he could scrutinize it closely. Yes, with this he could buy a new crew, new gear, everything he needed to strike oil. Adam tucked it in his pocket and began ascending the ladder.

“A rope. We need a rope. Just hold on,” he said to Panchito as he climbed up.

He was going to help him. He was sure of it. But then he heard the groan beneath him - Panchito’s last breath. Adam didn’t bother looking back down. He felt a rustling wind at his back as the vultures descended.

Adam reached the surface. Immediately, his hand went into his pocket and he withdrew the egg. He eagerly hawked up saliva and spat on the mud-covered sphere, letting his spittle wash away the grime. As his thumbs worked the surface, he realized he was looking at something that could not have been made by man. How did it get here in the first place? He didn’t care. It looked expensive. And that drove out any suspicion he had.

Tracing the perplexing patterns on the egg, he discovered new intricacies with every passing moment, shapes and tangled forms spiraling into themselves. Shapes that didn’t make sense, spreading into infinity. As he brought the egg closer, a sharp pain formed behind his eyes, as he strained to understand what he was looking at. Before he could look any further, CRACK! The thing began to split open at the top, small shell fragments breaking apart to reveal something inside.

In the center of the egg lay some kind of larvae, its body translucent, with organs lazily orbiting around the nucleus of its tiny beating heart like planetary bodies.

Adam watched, as the creature raised its head. Its face looked almost human, like a crude mold cast for a mask before it is shaped. Then it opened its mouth, revealing a black hole of a throat encompassing its whole body, ringed by even blacker needle-like teeth.

Suddenly it leapt at him, biting into his finger!

Adam howled out in pain, ripping the creature away. It dropped to the ground in a wet plop, then slithered away rapidly in the sand before Adam could even react. Blood filled its once-clear body, tinting it a reddy opaque.

He stared at the slimy scarlet trail left in the creature’s wake. Then he looked at his finger. Blood ran from a halo of needle-like punctures in the skin. Before he could wrap his head around what happened, he felt his knees weaken, a pleasant sense like a daydream suffusing his head.

Past his maimed finger, his brother’s towers churned in the distance; extracting the delicious blood of the earth that flowed like ocean currents beneath. Adam wanted to be there. He wanted to drown in it, letting it fill his lungs. Oil, oil.

He didn't mind that he felt his eyes closing and the world go dark; soon he felt nothing at all, only that lonely dream to keep him company.

He woke up gasping, violently sucking in air that his chest refused to accept. His head scrambled as he climbed back from unconsciousness. He had fallen asleep, or fainted, and it was nighttime now. The moon hung low and yellow in the sky, almost close enough to touch.

The only sounds that filled the night were the odd caws of vultures echoing from the bottom of the well hole, runts that were last to feast on Panchito’s carrion. The fleeting memories of the day Adam could recall, but separately, until they all snapped together at once. The vultures, the dead man, the creature that bit him, the egg…

The egg! Adam’s heart froze as he pawed at the ground, looking for his treasure in the darkness. When he finally touched it, his face fell. In the moonlight, he could see that the once-beautiful lattice of patterns had fractured and split from where it had broken at the top. It was worthless now, so he hurled it into the dust, cursing once more at his rotten luck. Slinging his backpack on and picking up his axe, he held his head low and headed back to the cabin, its tiny lights dim in the distance.

As he walked, Adam grasped at his skull, tending to the sharp pain now there. He must have hit his head when he passed out. Although it was dark, he could now see black veins creeping up his finger from where that creature had bit him.

He reached the cabin. The door was wide open; banging on the frame from the light tickle of the wind.

Sounds emanated from within, a low moan set to a different pitch from the chorus of coyotes taking over the night. As he walked into the cabin, he could hear it clearly; Madelyn’s voice, and the grunting of a much deeper one.

From the low moonlight that snuck through the window, Adam saw two rough shapes moving atop his bed, moaning. The rusty bedframe squeaked with their motion. Laying on the bed was Madelyn, who gasped and strained. Atop her was the bony form of a man. He must have heard Adam come in, and turned to face him.

The night’s pale glow revealed a face that was identical to Adam’s. His own features: every flaw, every blemish. Everything the same. Save for one thing; across the face, a smile stretched unnaturally wide, revealing two rows of ink black teeth.

That grin made Adam stop in his tracks, freezing his blood, unable to comprehend what was before him.

His double continued his work, thrusting inside Adam’s wife again and again. His body increased in vigor and tempo, but his head and face stayed fixed in place, looking at Adam. The bed squealed and the thrusts became more aggressive. Madelyn squirmed in the sheets, but his double kept his gaze fixated upon Adam, taking his free hand and pressing her deeper into the bed. Between the squeaking of the box springs, Adam could swear he even heard her moaning in pleasure.

And then it was over. The double arched his back, releasing, exhaling in ecstasy.

He stood up and left the bed, beginning to walk in Adam’s direction.

“Adam, where are you going?” Madelyn’s voice drifted from the mattress.

Beads of obsidian ejaculate softly dripped from the tip of his double’s now flaccid member that dangled down to his knees. He took the bedsheet he had cast aside and bunched it up into a tiny ball, wiping his cock of any remaining moisture. When he completed his task, he dropped the sheet, letting it fall to the floor with the newly added weight of his seed.

He kept that fixed smile as he passed by Adam, walking out the open door. Adam watched him descending the porch steps, the double’s bare flesh turning to goose pimples in the cold night air.

Adam lingered on Madelyn’s naked form for only a moment before turning back to the door. As his eyes hovered on the bare back and buttocks of his double, thoughts of rage, all the things he’d been holding back, flooded in.

That smile. That horrible smile on that horrible face. The smug satisfaction that he won, that he beat Adam tonight.

Adam tore through the doorway, following his likeness slowly walking into desert. He grasped tight onto his pickaxe. Nothing was left in his mind but hatred. He charged, lifting the ax high and swinging it.

CRUNCH! The tip of the pickaxe lodged in the back of the double’s head. Adam’s hands rang from the shock, as if he had just slammed a hammer against a piece of iron. His double stood still, black ichor oozing from its cranium. He took a couple of steps forward; not the staggering gait of someone near death, but the same stride as before.

He took nine more steps before finally collapsing on the ground, scattering dust as he fell face first.

Adam ran to the corpse, dislodging the axe and swinging it at the now dead double again and again, screaming as he turned the head into a mass of dark ooze and skull fragments. He couldn’t stop himself. He didn’t want to.

He stopped only when he no longer had the strength to lift the axe. He stared at his work heaving, exhausted. His rage replaced by a sense of clarity. He knew exactly what to do with the body. He remembered the way the vultures descended on Panchito in the hole. He looked out at the vast expanse of what he had already dug in the land - deep pits.

Deep enough to drop someone in and never see them again. The carrion birds would get rid of the body.

Not wasting time, he dragged the body to the nearest hole. It was over half a mile away and once he reached it, he had to stop to catch his breath. With a harsh grunt, he hurled the double’s body down into the deep earth. He heard the hard snap of bones reverberate down in the chasm as it bashed against the walls. Then, suddenly, the noise stopped.

In the moonlight, Adam saw the corpse dangling on a rocking outcropping about halfway down the hole, refusing the fall. Cursing under his breath, he descended down after it, grasping at the smoothened hand holds he made for this pit so many months ago. It was getting very dark as he kept going, and he could no longer see where he was grasping. His foot missed the next hold, and his whole body slipped. He screamed as he fell, grasping at the corpse under him, using it to break his fall as he crashed to the bottom.

Adam coughed up black dust, groaning in pain as he rolled off the body of his double and onto his back. Every bone felt broken, and he couldn’t move. With lidded eyes, he stared at the moon, now so far away. It would be dawn soon, and the vultures would come, not just for the corpse beside him. He could be their meal as well. It was fitting. End it here, at the bottom, where it began. No glory, no wealth: consumed by the very land he owned. He smiled, the weight of his expectations melting off his shoulders.

As the hours he spent crippled down in the well slipped by, a sense of tranquility filled him. It would be over soon; no longer did he have to try. No longer did he have to compete. Adam welcomed the squawks from the vultures that gathered at the top of the pit, ready to feast. Their caws sounded more now like the jeers of old friends, chastising you for leaving the tavern too early. He closed his eyes one last time, at peace.

He felt something trickle through his fingers, moist and sticky. Adam’s eyes popped open. He strained to lift his hand up, holding it high in the air so he could see it. Difficult to make out at first, but as dawn supplanted the night sky, he saw it for what it was.

In the emerging sun, his hand was shining slick and black. There it was — oil.

Now the rest of his body felt wet. Turning to his side, he watched the whole floor of the pit bubble up and fill with the stuff. And it was rising fast. He opened his mouth wide, letting its bitter flavor touch his tongue, swallowing it down like it were the smoothest scotch. It felt thick in his throat, but it filled him with new life. Gone was his pain; rising to his feet, Adam smeared it all over his face, letting it sink into his teeth, blackening them. Beneath him, the corpse was now submerged in the oil, consumed by Adam’s dream. The vultures too had scattered, disappointed in his decision to live. Replacing them at top of the pit was Madelyn. She was still naked and held her blanket close to her.

“Look! Look!” he screamed, holding up his night-black hand. Adam beckoned her to join him down in the pit, but she stayed where she was. He licked his soiled lips and tasted the foul flavor on his mouth and teeth, splashing around and dancing like a lunatic in the ever-filling pool. Then he saw her face crack curve down into her signature frown. “Come to bed now Adam,” she rasped, now turning and leaving him. And like that, gone was his joy. Replaced with that familiar pit that he always felt at bottom of his stomach.

Adam’s eyes strained to read the documents splayed out across his massive dinner table: a tedious contract regarding land seizure from the local Indian tribe. It was hard to focus on it; all those boring details. But he could not bear to see what was happening on the other side of the table.

He winced at the loud, juvenile giggling; first from a throaty, deep voice and then joined by its feminine counterpart. They laughed quietly, incessantly, like a pair of mischievous children ridiculing the teacher from the back of the class.

The fingers from Adam’s good hand dipped into a bowl of pickled eggs his butler had laid out for him, taking one into his mouth and sucking the sour juice from the soft white orb. He looked down as some of the liquid dribbled onto the contract he was reading. Eggs were the only thing he could stomach these days, the only thing that his senses could handle without bringing his stomach to retch. So sickly had he become these years, all starting from that wound where he was bitten. Over the last decade, it had crept up from his finger all the way to his shoulder, leaving the flesh blackened and desiccated.

Meanwhile, multiple, conflicting scents of different meals from the far end of the table wafted their way over to Adam’s side, filling his nostrils with a mélange of culinary chaos. The abominable odor of fruit, steak sauce, sweet and savory all came into his nose at once, and he felt his insides revolt. His hand shot up, catching the tiny ejection of bile through his fingers.

This coincidentally forced him to look up from his page. He hated watching this; how she catered to Junior, that thing that was apparently his son. A creature barely resembling a boy; a fat, blubbering pile of milky white flesh. Adam could see the belly poking through his dress shirt and waistcoat, buttons straining as they tried to hold back his bulk. His pink mouth squealed as Madelyn delicately fed him another piece of chocolate cake, pushing each of her fingers into his mouth until the dessert was all gone. Slowly, sensually, she pulled her fingers out of the chewing orifice, her fingers slick with saliva and dotted with dark crumbs like ants swarming a picnic.

Junior would bash the table in excitement over the next piece of food, sending piles of plates and trays shattering to the ground. Wordlessly, the various attendants fluttered about and cleaned up the mess around the two, leaving them to their merriment.

Adam was about to return to his contract when Junior opened his mouth again. Madelyn had chosen for him some black licorice. As Adam stared, fixated, Junior flicked his tongue at the black syrup that clung to his molars like dripping mud. With each bite of licorice, more and more of the black tar was spread across his mouth. The boy’s face turned into a smile, so horribly wide it touched the ends of each ear. He looked at Adam, smiling with teeth darker than black. It was the same feeling, the one Adam felt when he stared at his double all those years ago. The smells and sounds of this revolting display were cast to the side and all Adam could do was stare at his black teeth, transfixed.

Then it came. A small hiccup that turned into a gag, and then violent convulsions. Madelyn gripped the boy’s shoulders, hysterically shaking him – desperate to help. He began vomiting up all of the food he had just ingested, sputtering out pieces of roast beef, mashed potatoes, and leeks like pieces of shrapnel.

Junior gripped the table, splintering the oak as he sent more things clattering to the floor. He then leaned forward, his eyes rolling back as he gagged and heaved, straining to release something bursting from his chest. Finally, with a last expulsion, it came out. In the remains of his half-digested food and bile lay a small golden egg. Adam’s eyes grew wide as he watched it roll slimily across the table. It looked just like the one from long ago.

Madelyn rushed to him. She cooed as she dabbed the filth around Junior’s face.

One of the maids rushed to pick up the egg.

“No!” screamed Adam, stopping her. Adam had to brace himself against the table, feeling the surge of nausea that coursed from his head to his toes whenever he stood up. He took a deep breath and walked around the table, grabbing a clean napkin.

He tenderly wrapped the egg in the cloth and placed it in his pocket, leaving the dining room. Stepping outside, he breathed in the cool air. He missed being beneath the open sky: all the huffing and digging, feeling as if the fruits of his labor were right around the corner. Now all he did was sit at his desk, in his mansion – the one he had built right next to his brother’s. Twice as big, so everyone would know who had won. Not that its size meant anything anymore, he bought his brother out of business years ago.

Adam reached the edge of his land. In the distance, he could see the headlights of his brother’s newest car. In all those times trying, Adam had never managed to hit him, but now thumbing the egg between his fingers he felt it was worth a shot.

He wound up his good arm, his eyes tracing not his target but a little beyond it. When he breathed out, it was calm, controlled – for a moment suppressing the nausea from this new strain. He just needed to be good once. Arching his leg high into the night sky, he let it rip, hurling the egg harder than he had ever thrown anything before – then he fell to the ground in exhaustion. Catching the stars in its iridescent glow, Adam traced its path. How it arced perfectly across the sky, and dropped right into the path of the car. Perfect. He grinned as he saw the car stop, and the silhouette of his brother and his new girl getting out to inspect the object that shone so brilliantly in his headlights.

Now Adam lay in bed, staring out his large window to the moonlit field beyond. He didn’t turn around as he felt the mattress slump from the large, heavy body of Junior, who now lay between him and his wife. All he could do was clutch the sheets tight, trying to drown out the sounds of giggling, and the soft suckling noises of mouth upon nipple. As his wife moaned and gasped, Adam afforded himself a rare yellow smile.

***

Written by Jamey Okpebe.